The Executioner's Song Read Online Free PDF

a bench jack, tearing down shoes. The jack was like a metal foot upside down, and Gary would put the shoe on, pry off the sole, take off the heel, remove the nails, pull out the stitching, and generally prepare the top for the new sole and heels. You had to watch not to rip the leather or make a mess for the next man.
                    Gary was slow, but he did it well. The first few days he had an excellent attitude, humble, pleasant, nice fellow. Vern was getting to like him.
                    The trouble was to keep him busy. Vern wasn't always able to be teaching. There were rush jobs to get out. The real difficulty was that Vern, and his assistant, Sterling Baker, were used to moving the work between them. It was easier to do it themselves than show a new man how to accomplish something. So Gary had to wait when he really wanted to move on to the next step. If he took a heel off, he wanted to put the new one on. Sometimes twenty minutes would go by before Vern could get back.
                    Gary would say, "I don't like this standing around and waiting. I feel like a dummy, you know."
                    The problem, as Vern saw it, was that Gary wanted perfection quickly. Wanted to be able to fix a pair of shoes like Vern could. It just wasn't going to come that way. Vern told him, "You can't learn this immediately."
                    Gary took it fine. "Well, I know that," he said, but his impatience didn't take long to come back.
                    Of course, Gary did get on well with Sterling Baker who was about twenty, and the nicest fellow. He didn't raise his voice, had nice looks, and didn't mind talking about shoes. The first couple of days he was there, Gary kept bringing the conversation back to footwear as if he was going to learn everything there was about it. The only time Gary had trouble concentrating was when pretty girls came into the store. "Look at that," he'd say. "I haven't seen anything like that for years."
                    The girls he liked best, he said, were around twenty. It occurred to Vern that Gary wasn't much older when he said good-bye to the world for thirteen years. He certainly was comfortable becoming friends with a kid like Sterling Baker.
                    Still, Gary's first date was set up by Vern and Ida with a divorced woman near his own age. Lu Ann Price. When she heard, Brenda said to Johnny, "This has got to be good."
                    Brenda didn't see Lu Ann as a feasible date for Gary. She was skinny, she had a few kids, and she was awful sure of herself. Her eyes had pink lids. That was a piss-poor combination.
                    All the same, she was a redhead. Maybe Gary would go for that.
                    The Damicos had decided Lu Ann was worth a try. There was nobody else they could think of right now, and Lu Ann, after all, had heard a little about Gary after Brenda picked up her correspondence with him again. When she heard that Gary didn't know how to meet people and could hardly take care of himself, Lu Ann felt ready to befriend him. "Why not," she said. "He's lonely. He's paid a terrible debt." Maybe a friend could explain things that a family couldn't.
                    On Thursday evening, therefore, not a week from last Friday night when Gary had been flying from St. Louis to Salt Lake, Lu Ann called to ask Vern if Gary would like to go out with her for a cup of coffee.
                    "I think that's a super idea," said Vern. Gary, being called to the phone, was quick to say yes.
                    About nine, she came over. Gary looked stunned when he met her. It was as if he hadn't expected her to look like that. Still, as Lu Ann would tell friends later, she couldn't decide whether he was pleased or disappointed. He stammered while saying hello, and then sat